The present invention relates to a method and system for providing e-commerce and accounting services to organizations and service providers for offerings ordered by the organization via an on-line interactive communication network. In particular, the present invention relates to a method and system whereby a third party intermediary can absorb certain payment, collection and billing functions on behalf of an organization and service providers which provide services to the organization. The term service provider as used herein refers to any entity or individual that provides a service, including the service of providing goods.
Although the invention is described in connection with an embodiment for providing payment, collection and billing functions on behalf of professional service firms (the organization), their employees and restaurants (the service provider), it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that this invention may be applied to a variety of organizations other than professional service firms, including an association of individuals, non-profit groups, clubs, schools, committees, government agencies, other business entities, and the like. Similarly, the present invention can be applied to service providers other than restaurants, including florists, gift shops, travel agents, transportation providers, hotels, entertainment providers, office supply providers, document services, grocery providers, beverage services, and the like.
Many employers pass through the cost of meals ordered by employees to the clients for whom those employees perform services. The process begins with the employee ordering the meal and ends with the employer billing the client, and is filled with time-consuming, costly and labor intensive administrative functions on the part of the employer, the employee and the restaurant.
For example, many companies that service clients (such as law firms, advertising agencies, accounting firms, investment banks, and the like) bill clients for meals ordered by employees. This process typically requires an employee to order food, either paying for it in cash or by credit card or charging it to a “house account.” A house account allows employees to order food and the restaurant sends the employer a bill for all such food orders. The employee then provides documentation of the meals ordered to the employer. The employer, in turn, collects and organizes the relevant records and bills each client for the food ordered by its employees. Further, the employer must reimburse the employee (if the employee paid for the meal) or pay the restaurant (if the employer has a house account).
The infrastructure involved in the accounting and payment process is paper intensive and administratively burdensome for both the employer and employee, and typically includes steps such as:                The employer must review all of the employees' reports, verify and store documentation, and ensure that each client is properly and timely billed;        The employer must either reimburse the employees or pay the restaurants (depending on whether the employer has house accounts with restaurants), often making these payments several months before receiving payment from the clients;        The employees must save receipts and prepare detailed reports of meals ordered.        
FIG. 1 is a flow chart which details an example of how food orders are currently processed and billed. An employee working through lunch or dinner will typically order in food for delivery from a restaurant. As shown in step 1 of FIG. 1, such an employee will physically search around the office for a menu. The employee will then typically contact the restaurant by telephone or facsimile and order a meal (step 2). The restaurant takes the order from the employee (step 3) and delivers the meal to the employee (step 4).
If the employer has a house account with the restaurant, the employee signs the bill and provides client information to the restaurant delivery person (step 5). The restaurant will then send the employer a bill for the meals ordered by its employees (step 6). If the employer does not have a house account, the employee will pay the restaurant directly for the food, whether by cash or by credit card (step 7). In this case, the employee will complete a reimbursement report with client account information and submit the report to the employer's accounting department (step 8).
In either case (whether house account or not) the employer's accounting department verifies the bill from the restaurant or the report from the employee (step 9). If the bill is verified, the employer pays the restaurant (step 10) and if the report is verified the employer reimburses the employee (step 11). The employer's accounting department will then enter the meal expense information onto the client's bill (step 12) and send the bill to the client (step 13).
Additionally, at many businesses, employees will be required to maintain a record of all meals ordered to enable the accounting department to verify the house account billing statements received from the restaurants.
The invention provides numerous improvements over the prior art and corresponding benefits for the organization member/employee. For example, many business professionals and other employees working in client service industries frequently work through lunch or late into the evening. Consequently, these employees order meals from a few menus stashed in their desk drawers or from a few restaurants with whom their employer has house accounts. Many employers also rely on outside vendors to provide food for business meetings and conferences. The process of ordering can be a time-consuming, error-laden and stressful experience. In contrast, the invention can provide the employees with the following benefits:                1. Eliminate the need for the employee to submit reimbursement reports.        2. Easy access to a comprehensive, up-to-date list of menus, organized by food type or special preferences (e.g., kosher, vegetarian, etc.) through a user friendly and state of the art web site;        3. Memory of previous restaurant and order selections for each employee;        4. Records of client information, persons eating the meal and other information necessary for proper billing of that meal;        5. Servicing of orders for individuals and groups;        6. Providing an estimated time of arrival of the food order to the employee; and        7. Real-time assistance from a Help Desk to resolve any problems related to an order.        
The invention also provides numerous benefits for the organization/employer. For example, the intermediary acts as a central repository for all of the information an employer needs in order to bill clients for meals ordered by its employees. When an employee orders using the invention, he or she will enter all of the information needed for the employer to bill that meal to a client properly. The intermediary will compile this information and send it to the employer electronically as often as the employer desires. This is preferable to the employer being dependent on employees to submit reimbursement reports because employees often fail to submit these reports in a timely fashion. This makes the workflow unpredictable for the employer's accounting staff and results in untimely bills to employer's clients.
The invention provides a single convenient report which eliminates the need to enter hundreds of reimbursement forms into the employer's accounting system and to store the supporting documentation. The report will be collated in the manner most convenient to the particular employer, whether by client, by date, or by employee. As a further convenience, an employer can have the intermediary generate a single bill for all of its restaurant ordering activity, rather than have each employee pay the restaurant for each meal and then seek reimbursement from his or her employer.                This system will have many advantages for employers, including:        1. simplicity of paying only one bill for nearly all of the restaurant orders of its employees;        2. convenience of receiving a single electronically generated reliable and verifiable report with all of the information the employer needs to bill its clients for the meals ordered by its employees;        3. Ease the administrative burdens on an employer's employees and accounting department associated with preparing and processing reimbursement reports, and billing of clients for meals;        4. Achieve cost savings as fewer employees need to attend to the process of reimbursement for, and client billing of, meals;        5. Achieve time savings because employees no longer need to keep receipts or fill out forms for reimbursement, nor do accounting personnel have to spend time sorting through this information;        6. Improve accuracy in billing because there are fewer opportunities for human error;        7. Improve cash flow because employers will, electronically, receive client billing information frequently and regularly. This enables the employer to bill its clients more quickly and, therefore, receive payment more quickly for the money it has paid out for these meals on the client's behalf;        8. Monitoring Employee Satisfaction of the restaurants the employee is ordering from and removing restaurants from the web site that do not deliver in a timely fashion or otherwise do not meet predefined standards.        
The invention provides numerous benefits for the restaurant as well. Because the intermediary maintains records of all transactions between the restaurant and the employees of a particular employer, the invention will streamline a restaurant's payment and collection efforts by enabling the restaurant to dispense with taking credit card orders from that employer's employees and, instead, allow the intermediary to provide a single bill to the employer on that restaurant's behalf. A restaurant listed on the database will have its full menu displayed to potential customers on the web site, and the menu can be updated electronically. Also, the intermediary can allow the restaurant to list daily specials with the service, as well as discount offerings. Among the benefits a restaurant can recognize by being listed in the database are:                Increased revenue and improved marketing generated by its menu being accessible to a larger number of potential customers;        Lower costs because, by letting the intermediary bill an employer on its behalf, this will lower the restaurant's operating overhead related to billing, collections and marketing;        Elimination of credit card fees that a restaurant pays (typically, between 2% and 3%, plus a processing fee), because the intermediary is sending the restaurants' bills to the employers, the employers are reimbursing the intermediary and the intermediary is wiring the monies or sending a check to the restaurants.        
In addition to the aforementioned benefits, the service will be appealing because it can (but does not have to) be implemented as a free service to the employer and employee, with a set percentage (e.g., 6%) of the dollar total of each order being billed to the restaurant. The cost to the restaurant is at least partially offset by the fact that the restaurant will not pay a credit card transaction fee for the vast majority of orders placed using the invention. Also, there is no cost to the restaurant to participate in the service as the restaurant only pays if it is actually making money through the service.
The present invention provides these and other advantages over the current methods of ordering, billing, and paying for meals delivered to employees, as well as convenience, time savings, and cost savings to employers, employees, and restaurants.
Methods and systems providing the above and other advantages are provided.